He tugs my hair so hard, I yelp. “You’re gonna try to destroy me, huh?”

I pierce him with a wicked glare. “Not try…I will.”

Just like he destroyed me.

His grip on my hair tightens, and he dips his head, skimming his nose along the column of my throat. “You’re forgetting something, Stray.”

“What’s that?”

“Your little plan will take some time.” His teeth sink into my neck and I cry out in pain. “But mine will only take a few minutes.” I close my eyes when his fingers hover over my throat, threatening to squeeze. “I thought you’d be smart enough not to threaten to ruin someone’s life. Especially someone who’s very capable of ending yours.”

I struggle and thrash against him, scratching him with my nails so the police will be able to gather evidence later…but he’s bigger. Stronger.

He pins me against the wall with the strength of his body. A moment later, his fingers begin to close around my throat.

This is it.

He’s finally going to kill me.

If he’s expecting me to beg him not to, he’d have better odds of watching pigs fly.

I hold his stare as he slowly, meticulously wrings the air from my lungs, like he’s done this a hundred times before.

Hell, maybe he has.

For a brief moment, I let myself give into the fear. There are so many things I wanted to do with my life.

I wanted to go to college.

I wanted to open a bakery one day—a pipe dream really, because it’s not very practical, but still…I wanted it.

Suddenly, he releases his hold on me. “Someone who went out of his way to help you.”

I open my mouth to ask what the hell he’s talking about, but he takes a step back and grunts, “I found you in the street last night.”

I blink in confusion. “What? Where?”

He walks over to the nightstand and takes a cigarette from the pack. “In front of the house.” He brings a lighter to the end of it and inhales. “It was raining pretty hard, and you had been out there for a while by the looks of it. I tried to wake you, but you were knocked out cold. The moment I picked you up, you puked, so I didn’t think it was a good idea to leave you alone.” He pins me with a menacing look. “I brought you here so I could keep an eye on you.”

I look down at the t-shirt I’m wearing. “And took off my clothes.”

“You were soaked and shivering. Trust me, it wasn’t like I wanted to see your hairy little snatch.”

Mortified, my cheeks flame, but I quickly recover. “Well, if you’re expecting a thank—”

“I’m not.”

I gather my clothes off the floor. “You swear you had nothing to do with this?”

“Aspen.” He waits for me to look at him before he says, “If I wanted to set you up, I’d do it myself. I wouldn’t enlist other people to do my dirty work for me.”

As fucked up as that might be, he has a point.

I’m heading for the staircase when it hits me.

It’s two in the afternoon.

“I missed breakfast.”

Knox’s dad is strict about eating our meals together like one big happy family. He probably wasn’t thrilled about my disappearance.

“I covered for you.”

I shuffle my feet. “What did you tell them?”

He flicks the ash from his cigarette and shrugs. “That you were sick in bed.”

I raise a brow. “And my mom—” my sentence falls by the wayside when I realize that she wouldn’t check up on me.

Because she doesn’t care.

No one does.

“Right.”

With that, I head up the stairs, but not before I hear Knox bark, “This isn’t over, Stray.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about.

I turn. “Wha—”

“You threatened me.” He takes a long drag from his cigarette and exhales, blowing the smoke in my direction. “And every action has a consequence.”

Chapter 16

Aspen

It’s Monday morning, and while Mondays notoriously suck…this one is particularly bad.

There’s no doubt in my mind that nearly everyone saw that video.

I rub my sweaty palms on my plaid skirt as Knox pulls into the school parking lot.

I expect him to tease me, especially after the warning he issued a couple days ago, but he remains silent…something I’m thankful for right now.

My stomach rolls when he cuts the engine. I want nothing more than to run far away from this hellhole and forget everyone and everything.

Knox stalls, twirling his keys around his finger, as if waiting for me to make the first move.

But I can’t.

I sit frozen in the passenger seat of his jeep, unwilling to get out.

Because I know the second I do, all hell will break loose.

A single tear rolls down my cheek, and I’m so humiliated I close my eyes, clutching the pearls my dad gave me.

God, I wish he were here right now.

“You’re gonna be late,” Knox says after another minute passes.

“Fine by me.”

His jaw clenches. “Stray—”

“You don’t fucking get it,” I snap, bile rising in my throat. “I was fine being a loser. Yeah, sometimes it sucked, and I got lonely, but for the most part I flew under the radar. No one paid attention to me or gave a fuck about what I did.” I clutch my pearls harder. “But now? I’ll never be able to blend in with the wall. I’ll never be able to walk into a classroom and not think the whispers I hear are about me. When people look at me now…they won’t see an uptight nerd who wears pearls and gets good grades. They’ll only see me with a dick in my mouth. They’ll think that’s all I’m worth.”

He leans over the seat. “You’re right.” His voice is a low rumble in my ear. “Now, what are you gonna do about it?”

I don’t understand what he’s implying. “What do you mean what am I gonna do about it? There isn’t anything I—”

“Exactly,” he snaps, cutting me off. “There isn’t a damn thing you can do about what happened.” He opens the door and gets out. “Might as well walk in there and own it.”